My husband and I recently spent four days in New York City and I bought something I’ve wanted since I was a little girl.
I got myself an American Girl doll.
For anyone who doesn’t know, American Girl is a line of dolls and print media, such as magazines and books. They have a line of historical dolls with accompanying books, which teach little girls about history through the lens of a little girl in a different time period.
I used to stare at the American Girl catalog for hours as a little girl. I also subscribed to the magazine, and every time it came in the mail I would read the whole thing cover to cover more than once.
Something about the brand always spoke to me. I remember in particular wanting a Molly doll. She is the doll whose time period is the 1940s, around war-time. She’s patriotic, and one thing I always loved about her was that she had glasses.
Dolls in general have come a long way for representation for every girl, but when I was little, dolls didn’t have glasses. Sunglasses, maybe, but not regular frames like I had at a young age. I’ve had glasses for so probably 20 years now, never had contacts, so glasses are part of how I look. And it was disheartening when I was little to know that even though I could find a doll with blond hair and blue eyes almost anywhere, they didn’t have glasses. Glasses weren’t considered pretty back then.
I never got an American Girl doll when I was little. I was always very responsible with my toys, but it still wasn’t justifiable to spend so much on a doll. Understandably so, since I had plenty of toys.
But when my husband and I went to New York, he asked me if I wanted to go walk around the American Girl doll store. I showed him the historical dolls, explained some of the unique features of a few of them, and told him about the different ‘girl of the year’ dolls that come out every year.
And when we were walking through the ‘Truly Me’ section, where you can pick from a bunch of dolls with varying skin tones and colors of hair, he said I should get one. He even offered to get one of the dogs you can buy to go with your doll for me.
So we walked through the section and picked up a doll that looked like me, with her blonde hair and blue eyes. And while I was standing in line, I looked to my right and saw a pair of rose gold glasses, which I also wear.
I picked those up too.
On Monday we went to Ellis Island before making out way home. We strolled through the museum and sat at a research computer finding immigration records for my husband’s great, great grandfather to print out and bring home.
And the message is the same, and is one of the reasons I think the American Girl brand always stuck with me. As I walked through the museum, I remembered that every little girl has a story in her own history. The little girls who came over on the many ships, some saying goodbye to family they would never see again and going to see Lady Liberty, they all had a story in that time in history.
Just like now, there are millions of little girls who will grow up and tell their stories.
That was one of the reasons I went into journalism. I wanted to help people tell their stories, and ink those stories into history, big or small.